VDAY: Spotlight on Women in Prison

Tuesday, February 12, 6:30pm

V-Day is a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls.  V-Day’s 2018-2019 Spotlight will focus on Women in Prisons and Jails, Detention Centers, and Formerly Incarcerated Women. A direct connection exists between violence and abuse done to women and girls and the risk that those women and girls will be directly impacted by incarceration. In the U.S., 86% of women in prison were sexually and/or physically abused prior to incarceration, as reported by The Vera Institute for Justice in 2017. In the aftermath of abuse, trauma can lead to substance abuse and addiction, which can easily become a pathway to more violence, crime and/or incarceration.

Join Harriet Hendel to learn more about the impact of minimum sentencing guidelines, mass incarceration and promising new programs being implemented in different areas.  Harriet Hendel is a retired educator with more than 30 years of experience teaching learning disabled students in New York and New Jersey. Now retired, she divides her time between New York and Sarasota. Her first experience in a prison took place in 2006 when she volunteered to teach creative writing to 120 men a week at Green Haven C.F., a maximum security prison just 3 miles from her home in upstate N.Y. Teaching is one of Harriet’s passions. She creates courses for Senior Citizens which focus on our criminal justice system. One of the classes highlights award-winning writers who are incarcerated. Another popular class is called: “Locked Up: Justice Denied” about wrongful conviction. Other classes are: Famous Women Behind Bars and Juveniles Behind Bars. Harriet teaches for Longboat Key Education Center, Brandeis National Committee, Lifelong Learning Academy and Pierian Spring Academy (all in Sarasota). Harriet has also been mentoring at-risk teens and disadvantaged students for over 13 years as a volunteer with MCA, Jewish Family and Children’s Services and Take Stock in Children (all in Sarasota), and volunteering with a Project 180 to assist men re-entering society after being incarcerated. Harriet was named Volunteer of the Year in 2013. As a speaker for IPF, Harriet is a passionate voice for the imprisoned and for reforms to the criminal justice system. She corresponds with 24 people in prison on a regular basis and visits 8 of those people at 6 different prisons in NY and CT.